This blog is a place that showcases the hobby in its many and varied games and products. A haven for those of us who want to see more of what the hobby has available and don't want to have to search though the static to find it.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Psyche of a Gamer: The rules need to define everything!

Why is it that some gamers can’t grasp the idea of a flexible
rules system? Case in point I was just
involved in a conversation where my conversation partner felt the rules needed
to clearly define buildings, and other types of terrain as to their difficulty,
etc. The game system in question basically
has the rules defined as “determine with your opponent what keywords apply to
each piece of

terrain.” The other side
of discussion seemed to feel that the designers had copped out. That to allow the players to decide for
themselves how the terrain the use was applicable to the rules was somehow lacking.

As the discussion continued I found myself perplexed, why
was the idea of looking at a piece of terrain and deciding if it was rough, or
cover, or impassible, not an acceptable way to determine terrain? Has it really come to the point where even
the pieces of terrain we place on the table have become a point of contention
between players? Ultimately my question
became, when did we forget that we are playing a game to have fun?

Of course someone reading this is going to decry, “But what
about tournaments, or competitive play?” Yes I understand that in competitive
play the terrain being predefined matters, and if the rules don’t define it for
players then

the organizer should. But
when I face my opponent, and I’m placing terrain, it is not that hard to say “This
building looks pretty closed up, impassable ok with you?” We all need to remember, we have chosen a
social hobby. It is nye impossible to
play these games alone, so guess what?
That means we need to be able to interact socially. (insert gasp here) So if you find it hard to agree with your
opponent about terrain placement and keywords, you and your opponent both need
to go back and re-evaluate the social contract of gaming, because you missed something.